Car rental agency Europcar is to roll out a thumbprint identification system across its UK network to help combat vehicle theft.
From June 4 all Europcar customers in the UK will have to provide a thumbprint as an additional form of identification before they can rent a vehicle.
The move follows a year-long pilot by car rental operators at Stansted Airport supported by Essex Police during which all 48,000 rented vehicles were returned safely.
Europcar’s operations and franchise director David Alexander said: “Vehicle theft is becoming more problematic for us and the ever-increasing sophistication in producing false documentation has made it increasingly difficult for us to trace and recover vehicles that are not returned.
“We believe that the implementation of the thumbprint scheme across our network will be a significant deterrent against vehicle theft.”
The thumbprints, which will only be used when a vehicle is not returned, are taken using an inkless gel and stored at the rental station with the customers’ rental agreement. They are then destroyed once the car is returned or returned to the customer if requested.
Last year Europcar, which has 130 rental stations in the UK, reported an average of 15 vehicles missing a month .